About me 自己紹介

I made this baby gift set a while ago, but I noticed that I still haven't post it yet... This is a handmade linen bunny and a crochet edged bib gift set, made specially by me to celebrate the arrival of my girlfriend's baby.

こちらは少し前に作った赤ちゃんのお誕生祝いです。

リネンのうさぎさんと、ふち編みのビブのセットです。長年の友人に待望の女の子が生まれたのをお祝いして作りました♪

The bib is reversible. For the front side, I used my favorite double gauze fabric from nani IRO. I just love the softness and the delicate colors of this fabric!

The gift set was shipped to the happy family of three who lives in Tokyo. I hope the sweet baby "K" lives a long and happy life filled with lots of love, good health, and prosperity. We are so delighted for your arrival!

Today I'd like to show you what you have created from my book, Zakka Handmades! There's nothing more exciting as a craft book author to see what the talented folks actually create from my book and patterns! It's really an amazing feeling that make me fly over the moon!

Wow! Thank you, everyone, for making these awfully cute zakka projects from my book!! I only shared your Kotori birds (little birds) pouches today, but I will definitely share other projects from my book soon!

My mom was visiting us from Japan over the past several weeks. She left for Japan recently, and we already miss her very much.

この冬は日本から私の母がこちらに遊びに来ていました。つい先日、母は帰国してしまったので今は家族で寂しがっている毎日です。

While my mom was here, she continuously played cards with our girls night and day (our girls love playing cards with their grandma!), she slept a lot, ate a lot, laughed a lot, and spent lots of quality time with us, and...

I call my mom a "crochet machine" simply because her crocheting speed is amazingly fast!

When our oldest girl asked her grandma if she can crochet a new granny blanket using our girl's favorite colored yarns, we were not sure if that was all possible, considering that there were less than three weeks left until my mom's departure date.

Yet my mom tackled one granny square at a time, and the size of the blanket grew each day...

しかし母はその日からかぎ針編みのモチーフを編み続け・・・。

And it kept on growing...

ブランケットは日に日に大きくなっていきました。

Until she crocheted a total of 270 squares of granny squares (in less than three weeks!) Wow!

最終的には270枚（!）のモチーフを2週間ちょっとの期間で編んで、つないで、長女のリクエスト通りのブランケットが出来上がりました。

Again, per request of my daughter, my mom added this yellow scallop edging around the entire blanket to finish the project.

全体の毛糸の色選びと同様に、最後のふち編みの色（黄色）も長女が選びました。

And here's the final result! My fourteen-year-old daughter can't be happier with how her blanket turned out. Thank you so much, mom, for your super speedy crochet blanket made with lots of love and care!!

Although this granny blanket was made super quick, I know that it will be treasured by my girl for many many years to come...!

I know, we're more than a half way into the month of January in 2014... but I've been wanting to look back at my zakka creations from 2013 and create a simple photo collage. Better late than never, I thought... ;P

もう2014年1月も半分以上過ぎてしまいましたが・・・。今頃になって2013年に作った雑貨作品の中からいくつかを選んでまとめてみました。

Looking back, what a fabulous year it was... My book was published in 2013 and it still seems like a dream to me.

Come say Hi! to me at the Craft & Hobby Association 2014 show this Sunday, Jan 12! This is a trade show and not open to the public, but stop by if you're attending! I'll be at R&M booth #1224 from 11 a.m.

My eight zakka patterns are available for wholesale purchase through Seven Islands Inc., a major Japanese fabric distributor based here in California, or check out my etsy shop for PDF patterns that can be downloaded immediately!

I am so excited that my book, Zakka Handmades, is now printed in German! It's available at Amazon Germany. Unfortunately, I don't understand a word of German, but the word "zakka" printed on the front cover of the German print really makes me smile :)

In our family, we are celebrating the New Year's day with traditional Japanese new year food. You know, we have two teen/tween girls who are born and raised here in the U.S., and we try our best to incorporate Japanese new year tradition into this special day for them. Which means I end up spending long hours in the kitchen prior to the New Year, preparing the food...

Japanese new year food is called "O-se-chi Ryo-ri" （お節料理） and each and every dish and ingredients have meaning, such as health, wealth and prosperity, good harvest, long life, happiness, and more babies in the family (really!) Some of these food are too "traditional" for our girls, but I still cook them anyway ;P

Let me quickly show you some of the Japanese food that I prepared for this new year.

Cooked veggies in Japanese style broth （煮しめ）

Konbu-maki or simmered seaweed rolls （昆布巻き）

Sweet black beans （黒豆）

Japanese style cha-shu pork, or marinated and braised pork （煮豚）

Cooked Burdock roots wrapped in sliced beef （ごぼう巻き）

Bu-ri or cooked yellow tail (鰤）

Marinated fried salmon and onions（紅白鮭マリネ）

Pickled carrot and daikon radish （紅白なます）

Mashed sweet potato with sweet chestnuts （栗きんとん）

Dried sardines cooked in soy sauce. 田作り（ごまめ）。

We store the prepared new year food in these "Ju-bako" or stackable lacquered boxes.（お重）

Here the food is being cooked and ready to be stored in the boxes. (I aim to finish the entire cooking by noon of the New Year's eve). Every year I prepare new year food in abundance, pack them in several ju-bako lacquer boxes (I own several of them), so that I can share the food with my friends and neighbors.